Day-2 Statistics:
208 miles
10 hours
21 mph average
Cotopaxi, CO to
Trinidad, CO
During my route planning this was the
longest day based on available motels and the length of the following days’ rides.
We had talked to a westbound TAT rider the day before and he said the roads
eastbound to Trinidad were great with no issues. There is an advantage to going
against the flow because we get to talk to a lot of TAT riders for intel. Still
some great scenery on this section and even got up to 10,600’ at one time.
Details:
Lots of wildlife: dear, buffalo,
pronghorn sheep, turkeys, and more. Several of which crossed the road in front
of one of the riders. This is open range territory so several times cows decided
to cross the road as we approached. Only injuries were 2 dead birds, both of
which Terry hit.
We did pass a rattlesnake in the middle
of the road and we all were able to miss running over it.
I came upon a wild turkey running in
front of my bike until he finally decided to fly out of my way.
This stretch uses paved roads more than
yesterday but still plenty of dirt/gravel to keep it interesting. Finally hit
some roads with medium gravel coverage and this is the one thing that almost
caused the only serious incident of the day. Of course it was Mike (the blog
author). I’m leading doing 45 mph on a perfectly good road but looking at the
scenery when I hit some of this gravel. The bike decided to fishtail and it
took several seconds to get it under control. Scared the devil out of me
because I knew if I had gone down it would not have been an easy fall at that
speed. I paid more attention to the road after that.
For the first ¾ of todays ride we were
in and out of the foothills with some perfect riding. As we got closer to La
Vita and Trinidad it flattened out and gave us a taste of what to expect for
the next 5 days ride through NM and OK. We were running so far ahead of
schedule we decided to stop for lunch in La Vita.
As we remounted for the last stretch we
could see black rain clouds covering our planned route to Trinidad. No problem,
we all had rain gear and had expected this to eventually happen. We decided to
wait to put on rain gear and glad we did because as we got closer to the rain,
it seemed to part in front of us so we rode the rest of the day in sunny
conditions. This is not to say the roads weren’t wet and muddy in places
because although we had missed the rain, it did fall prior to our arrival. Good
practice for OK if we encounter rain there. We had talked to 2 westbound TAT
riders a day ago and they had said they had a terrible time around Alva, OK due
to the mud. One was ridding an Africa Twin all decked out and even had a winch
installed on his back rack. The other rider was on a big KTM of some sort. They
said they had to stop every 20’ to dig the mud out from under the Africa Twins
fender and at one point they used the winch to haul the KTM back out of the
mud. They had eventually taken the front fender off the Africa Twin until they
got clear of the mud. Can’t wait to get to OK.
We arrived at our motel in Trinidad
around 4 pm, got cleaned up and had dinner prepared by The Judge once again.
Sadly he will be leaving our support team tomorrow so we will have to revert to
our former life style for the rest of the trip.
We then started looking at our trip
plan for the next 5 days; Trinidad, CO to OK/AR border. I had tried every
combination of night stops based on available motels and was able to keep each
day’s ride under 200 miles (todays was just over that due to where our motel
was last night). As you can see from the picture of all the TAT maps laid out
on the motel floor we do things scientifically. As much as Woodrow tried to
come up with a better approach, we finally went back to my original plan, which
is:
Day-3 – LJs Bunkhouse just west of
Boise, OK
Day-4 – Liberal, KS
Day-5 – Alva, OK
Day 6 – Bartlesville, OK
Day-7 - OK/AR border and home
Tomorrow brings special consideration
due to the isolation of the TAT route through southern CO, NM and OK Panhandle;
fuel range. Although all our bikes are carrying 1 gal of extra fuel in a
RotoPax, we still don’t have the range to go from Trinidad, CO to the first
fuel available in OK; Boise. We estimate
this to be somewhere around 140 to 160 miles. My CRF250L has a 2 gal tank with
1 gal RotoPax but gets 52 mpg. That’s 156-mile range (after adding the FMF exhaust
mod). Too close for comfort. Several of the other bikes are in a similar condition
and one of the WR250Rs gets worse mpg than mine.
We have planned for Marty to fill three
5 gal fuel tanks in Trinidad and meet us at Branson, CO (which has no fuel).
Branson is 40 miles from Trinidad on the TAT so that will get all the bikes
topped off for the rest of the day’s ride. I’ve always known the fuel range of
the CRF250L would be an issue out west so although we have it solved for Leg-2,
I will have to find a better solution for the CO to OR portion of the TAT.
That’s about all I have for today
except a few more pictures. I wish the ones of the terrain we have seen could
better represent the real thing but you have to believe me it is fantastic. Some
of the best times on this ride are when we ride over a ridgeline and have an
amazingly beautiful scene come into view. Enjoy.
BTW - LJs Bunkhouse doesn't have cell service or WiFi so I won't post a blog entry for Day-3 until I get to Liberal, KS.
I have to close this blog once again by
explaining that anything I say in my blog is my personal opinion based on my
skill level and experience. I have never given advice or stated that anything I
say applies to everyone else. What was hard for me could be easy for a more
experienced rider. I try to provide details on what I experienced so maybe
someone else might get some useful information. It’s not to scare other riders
away or make my accomplishments more embellished. I say this because of the
334,000 views of my blog I occasionally get comments from the 1/2% that I’m a
“Drama Queen” or even less attractive comments. Please don’t read my blog if
you don’t like what I write. I’m a lot of things but a Drama Queen I’m not.
Enough said.
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